Meet the doctors who are driving frugal innovation in medical devices industry

India imports 70% of its medical devices, increasing the cost of treatment. Innovating in India can bring down that cost to less than half in most cases.Shadma Shaikh | ET Bureau | August 23, 2016, 09:18 IST

Bani, a 45-year-old resident of Durgapur in West Bengal had lost his voice to throat cancer and had not been able to speak a word in ten years

He could not afford an artificial voice box. But when he heard of a certain doctor in Bengaluru, "who could make him talk again for fifty rupees", he got on a train to the startup hub of India to meet Dr Vishal Rao, a medical surgeon who turned into an innovator and built a silicone-based voice prostheses device that could provide voice to the voiceless with minimal cost. Bani returned to Durgapur with his voice and faith in humanity restored.

Dr Vishal Rao is just one among the doctors who are turning into innovators to create devices, designed to fit the bill for Indian patients, medically and financially.

During his second year of training at St. John's Medical Hospital, ENT specialist Jagdish Chaturvedi figured that most throat cancer cases were referred to specialist doctors at later stages because doctors in rural areas lacked the equipment to detect cancer at earlier stages.

To solve that problem, he built a low cost portable endoscopy device, that made the endoscopy procedure ten times more affordable.

Five years later, Dr Chaturvedi has founded InnAccel, a medtech accelerator in Bengaluru, and developed 15 devices used to treat and diagnose over 1,00,000 patients so far. He also trained over 200 Indian entrepreneurs, including 67 practising doctors through fellowship programmes and workshops in innovating for medical devices.

"It's imperative for doctors to be driving innovation in the medical devices space," says Dr Chaturvedi. "Doctors understand the design required for the device and when you create or build a device, you also hold control over its price point."

For example, Noxeno, a nasal foreign body removal device that Dr Chaturvedi built for child patients is specifically designed for the Indian market, where children are mostly treated by pediatricians and physicians.

Pediatricians are generally not trained to use hooks, probes or fine instruments that require precision, resulting in unwanted fiddling of the foreign particle and pushing it further down.

Such cases then require surgery by an ENT specialist, increasing the cost of care. Noxeno is a hand held device, with a solid handle, trigger and in-built light that makes it easy to operate for a general practitioner, solving the problem at first point of care.

India imports 70% of its medical devices, increasing the cost of treatment for a predominantly out-of-pocket paying market, 80% of which resides in rural regions.

Innovating in India can bring down that cost to less than half in most cases.

"Devices made in countries we import from undergo massive cycles of regulatory and clinical trials, which is why they are priced higher. In India, it's easier to manufacture devices and price them at a lower cost," said Dr Chaturvedi. Dr Devi Shetty, chairman of affordable healthcare chain Narayana Health, agrees.

"We are in a phenomenal position because we don't have draconian laws preventing developing technology in healthcare," Dr Shetty said.

The future of healthcare is the interaction between man and machine, says Dr Shetty. "Nobody is as poised as doctors to make it happen. I am sure Indian doctors will come up with great innovations to transform the way healthcare is delivered," he said.